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The hidden hand

The chipmaker Western spies underestimated

SMIC achieved advanced semiconductor manufacturing without the equipment the US banned, forcing a reckoning with China's technical ingenuity.

The number

7nm-equivalentprocess achieved without EUV access

China's SMIC mastered advanced chip production using only older deep-ultraviolet lithography through multi-patterning innovation—a feat US and Dutch intelligence assessors believed impossible. The capability remained hidden until Huawei's Mate 60 Pro teardown revealed Kirin chips manufactured on SMIC's N+2 process, exposing a critical gap in Western export-control assumptions.

Source: TechInsights Finds SMIC 7nm (N+2) in Huawei Mate 60 Pro · TechInsights · Sep 4, 2023

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